Saturday, August 6, 2011

How Not to Do Housework

So today was going to be a catch up on housework/deep cleaning day. Since I blog full time over at Deep South Dish, I tend to neglect (and ignore) the house, and well things can get clutted up and dusty. And then I see an episode of Hoarders and it freaks me out.

I intended to start in the kitchen first, wipe down everything, put away everything and do a top to bottom cleaning including floors and walls. Went in there and decided that I was hungry so made some lunch. Checked the fan page for DSD on Facebook, got distracted, looked up some links & answered some questions for readers, worked on coding some old posts for the new recipe box before sharing the links - I'm in the midst of that on my entire site - finally an hour or more later, made my way back the kitchen.

The satellite started acting up and suddenly we couldn't get any channels at all. I remembered that we were supposed to be having some sort of geomagnetic storm for the next few days and knew that could be part of the problem but wasn't having any problems with cable (yes, we have both cable and satellite) or internet and we've been having trouble with our satellite 2 input. Already replaced the outside cable recently that was looking a little weary and thought that had fixed it.

So I pull out the tv and check the connections behind there. Noticed the dust and start dusting the curtains, wall, all behind the tv. Had to go get the vacuum cleaner to get all that up. Found the cable that runs outside, followed it and discovered the frayed cable we replaced recently was actually for satellite 1, not 2. In between having to come inside to cool off every 5 minutes, got the ladder and started checking all the connections at the switchbox outside, then at the satellite, still no signal. Grab the remote start running tests, find a problem, rerun the satellite test and in the midst of that the satellite comes back on.

Back to the kitchen.

I have cathedral ceilings that extend into the kitchen and I store cookbooks on top of the cabinets. A LOT of cookbooks but we won't go there right now. I was reshelving some of the ones that I had been browsing through for ideas. By the way {forthcoming hissy fit warning} if a blogger of food never credits another source for any of their recipes and says things like I don't watch any of the cooking shows on tv, I don't have but a handful of cookbooks I've owned forever, I don't subscribe to any of the food magazines yada yada yada, they are 1) lying through their teeth or 2) stealing recipes from cookbooks or other food bloggers, changing one insignificant detail and calling that recipe their own. Well, I don't do that.

If I want to write a new recipe, I usually have a base of an idea that just comes from experience or is inspired by something that I have seen on tv, in a book, or in a magazine. I subscribe to several magazines, some because I want to learn to write better. Others because I want to learn to photograph better. Others because they inspire me in other ways. From there, I research using those same resources - online, television, magazines and cookbooks. I have hundreds of cookbooks, some very old. I watch a lot of food television. A LOT. I write up an idea and get in the kitchen to experiment and cook it. Sometimes it's perfect, others it's not quite there. I make some revisions, rewrite, and yes, I hit the kitchen again. I know some bloggers do, but I don't want to publish failures or recipes I don't like that much, so I keep making them until they are the way I want them. To me, unless a food blog is made up of adaptations of and fully attributed recipes, that's the way a food blogger should write recipes. It's the only way to be authentic in my opinion, and that is the kind of food site I want to convey with my work. {tucks away soapbox}

All that to say, I work from the family room and there are constantly books and magazines all over the place. I like being in here with my husband rather than tucked into another room, isolated and by myself. So I went in the kitchen to start re-shelving some of the cookbooks and let's just say things are a bit tight up there. Truth is they have also moved onto a shelf in the family room too. But anyway, I have a few Christmas cookbooks so thought, these don't really need to be in here so I'll move them to the office. Pull them down, take them in the office, decide I have got to vacuum in there. The cat litter box is in a corner of that room and although I do clean it out everyday, I just don't understand how these cats manage to spread litter all over the floor in there, but they do. So I put the Christmas cookbooks on the shelf in there and vacuum - floors, corners, top, bottom, edges, everywhere. Decide since I'm vacuuming might as well do the family room too - floors, corners, top, bottom, edges, everywhere. Might as well dust some things while I'm here too.

Finally back to the kitchen. To shelve the cookbooks I made room for. Was thinking about a photo styling project that I'm doing for Foodbuzz & thought Mama's old punch bowl cups would be nice (my cousin has the punch bowl itself) thought the box was in the office closet so back to the office. Straightened up the closet a little while looking, found a purse that had stuff in it, no money except change, started cleaning the purse out. Dug around the closet some more but never found the cups.

All that stretching, stooping, bending from vacuuming had me exhausted. Hey that's exercise - I'm not used to that! Decided I wanted some tacos. Went outside with the pup, came back inside and started intensely itching on my back from who knows what. Looked in the mirror and there was a huge red rash across my back. Apparently having some kind of rash reaction to something. What the heck? I literally just walked outside & came back in. It's not like I rolled around in anything. Took a shower, had hubby put cortisone cream on my back, put fresh clothes on and decided to take a break, started this post, checked Facebook, answered questions and looked up links for a reader.

Back to the kitchen. To shelve the cookbooks I made room for. A hundred bazillon hours ago.

Went back to the office to get an envelope for the receipts tucked in the corner. Back to the kitchen. FINALLY shelved the books and started on the kitchen. 9 hours later.

Funny thing is ... I know I'm forgetting many more distractions that happened along the way and I sure didn't make much progress. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.
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